BNHA, A Little Uneven

Title: A Little Uneven [Kirishima/Bakugou]
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Summary: Kirishima goes over to the Bakugou’s for dinner, but his old-fashioned grandmother is just as big a roadblock as Bakugou warns that she will be.
AN: Written for Shiritori. There’s nothing explicitly ABO about this at all, but Bakugou’s overbearing grandmother is a character from the Omega Bakugou fic I wrote (Slow to Start But Quick to Burn), so you can totally see this as a third year sequel set in the same universe as that if you want.

A Little Uneven

“Let’s get started already,” Bakugou grumbles. “Hurry the fuck up, we’ll be late.”

“Hm?” Kirishima looks up from the mirror, where he’s struggling with his tie, looking back over his shoulder to examine Bakugou. Bakugou isn’t wearing a tie, but he does have a nice button-down on. He’s got his hands fisted in the pockets of his slacks and he’s scowling to the side, jaw clenched. Kirishima has been to Bakugou’s house for dinner twice before, once as a friend and once as the boyfriend, and Bakugou has never given a single shit before about being late. “You ok?”

“Fucking fine, just hurry up,” Bakugo snaps, and then before Kirishima can answer, Bakugou grabs Kirishima by the shoulders and spins him around, grabbing for Kirishima’s tie with enough force to cause Kirishima a minor worry about being strangled. “You wear a tie every fucking day to class! It’s not that hard!”

“I don’t tie it every day, I just loosen it and slip it over my head,” Kirishima points out. Bakugou spares him a beady eye as he yanks out Kirishma’s sub-par knot and starts over, vicious little tugs on the fabric. When he shoves the knot up hard enough to bump Kirishima’s throat, Kirishima lifts a hand to wrap fingers around Bakugou’s wrist, loosely, but enough to feel Bakugou’s pulse. It’s fast, a little uneven. “Babe. It’s a tie, not a villain. Are you freaking out?”

“No,” Bakugou scoffs. He tries to jerk his hand back, but Kirishima’s grip holds.

He looks Bakugou in the eye and says evenly, “Tell me why you’re freaking out.”

“My grandmother’s coming over,” Bakugou admits, eyes dropping. “She’s old as hell and super old-fashioned. She thinks I’m a disgrace, and she’s gonna take one look at you and—” Bakugou cuts off, and Kirishima tries to ignore the way his stomach drops.

“And what?” he prompts. He’s trying to keep his face neutral and hopes his face is actually doing that.

Bakugou snorts a frustrated sigh out his nose. His voice is quieter when he finishes, “She’s gonna ask you a ton of invasive questions and bitch that you’re too flashy. She’ll say a bunch of shit that either is mean or sounds mean, and it’s all bullshit, but it’s gonna hurt your feelings anyway because you’re too nice and you want everyone to like you, even my shitty postwar-era grandmother.”

Bakugou sucks in oxygen, out of breath, while Kirishima tries to work out how to answer that.

“Forget it,” Bakugou says, turning away and saving Kirishima from saying anything. “You’ll see soon enough.”

Bakugou is fidgety and distracted the whole trip. Kirishima grabs Bakugou’s hand when he won’t stop drumming them loudly on the subway seat, earning a dirty look from the salaryman across the aisle. He threads their fingers together and squeezes tight for reassurance. Bakugou sighs, like it hurts, a slumps a little deeper in against Kirishima’s shoulder.

The salaryman is giving both of them dirty looks after that, but Kirishima doesn’t give a damn about that and holds Bakugou’s hand tight the rest of the trip, all the way to his doorstep.

They’re a little early, even, only Bakugou’s mom home and finishing up dinner in the kitchen. She tells them how handsome they look and goes on about what a good influence Kirishima is on her shitty son, before launching into all the gossip with him that Bakugou will never suffer telling her. Kirishima basks in the attention from Bakugou’s cool, pretty mom, keeping one eye on Bakugou and the way his shoulders have relaxed at least partially.

That is until his grandmother actually arrives and the other shoe drops just as Bakugou predicted.

“Hardening?” she demands. They’ve barely sat down, but she’s already asked Kirishima’s name, hometown, and family business, and Kirishima wonders if only repeating his name and hero license number is an option. “Hardening what exactly?” Her eyes are narrow, as if she knows exactly what gets hard.

“My…skin?” Kirishima fumbles. “It gets, uh, rocky. It. All over?” She’s still staring at him, and Kirishima holds up his hand to demonstrate. “Like th—”

“It’s not good manners to use your quirk at the table,” she snaps, and Kirishima drops his hand like she burned it with laser eyes. He does his best to keep his polite smile frozen but turns his head to Bakugou to beg help me with his eyes. “Well, small wonder you haven’t got any sense, knew it to look at you, too flashy by half…”

Bakugou doesn’t meet his eyes, but he shrugs one shoulder the smallest amount, helpless. A moment later, Kirishima feels Bakugou’s hand brush against his, under the table, and Kirishima links their pinkies like it’s a life preserver.

“And your posture is atrocious,” she shifts her attention to Bakugou. Kirishima feels relief for a split-second. “Both of you. Honestly, what are they even teaching you in this fancy hero school that’s such a big deal? Not manners, that’s for sure.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Bakugou starts, then hisses through his teeth, Kirishima assumes due to a kick under the table from his mother.

“What do you think of the fish?” Mitsuki cuts in smoothly. “I tried a new recipe from one of the girls down the block.”

“I can tell,” Bakugou’s grandmother, who has not yet put a single bite in her mouth, announces, and the next five minutes are an endless list of how to do it better. Bakugou’s mother calmly goes on eating through the whole thing, and it takes Kirishima at least two of those minutes to realize that Bakugou’s mother is drawing her mother-in-law’s attention purposely to give them a break.

Bakugou’s mom is so cool, Kirishima thinks desperately. He has to let go of Bakugou’s pinky to start eating but he does it anyway, out of loyalty for his mother’s brave sacrifice.

Even with her running practiced interference, Kirishima has still had an earful about virtually every aspect of his appearance, life goals, and future potential for success by the time it’s over. He keeps telling himself not to take it to heart, like Bakugou warned him, but it sure doesn’t feel good and he misses the way the Bakugou family dinners are usually full of fun arguing and teasing. It’s an enormous relief when Mitsuki stands up with her plate and reaches for her mother-in-law’s.

“Go on into the living room, and relax.” She looks Kirishima right in the eyes as she adds, “The boys can help me clean up. Katsuki will bring you some tea.”

“Try not to burn it this time,” Bakugou’s grandmother says, her tone implying there’s no hope for the outcome.

“Oh, I’ll bu—” is all Bakugou gets out before Mitsuki scruffs the back of his collar like he’s a kitten and pushes him into the kitchen. Kirishima follows close behind, feeling downcast and a little shaky, like he’s just escaped a villain he had absolutely no idea how to lay a finger on.

As soon as they’re in the kitchen, Mitsuki heaves a sigh of relief, and Bakugou starts muttering a string of invectives as if he’s an overfilled balloon trying to release all the extra air he’s been holding in. She offers Kirishima a sympathetic smile as she reaches for the plate in his hands, but the lines around her eyes are still tight, and Kirishima wants to say something nice, anything.

“It was really good,” he blurts, refusing to release the plate so they’re both holding opposite sides of it awkwardly. “Dinner. It tasted great.”

“Oh, hell,” Mitsuki mutters. She twists the plate out of Kirishima’s hands, drops it on the sideboard, and then turns back to grab Kirishima’s shoulders to drag him in for a tight hug. Kirishima is taller than her now and too old to be hugging his boyfriend’s hot, cool mom, so it’s awkward as hell, but her grip is so strong and Kirishima hugs her back, because he really needed one.

“What the fuck?” Bakugou demands; Mitsuki throws out an arm and drags him into the hug too, hauling him into her and Kirishima’s sides like a car crash.

“You’re such good kids,” she hisses at them, serious and low, like she’s threatening them. “Don’t you dare listen to a thing that unhappy woman ever says.”

“Oh,” Kirishima whispers, because it’s a lot, all of this at once.

“You’re gonna make him cry,” Bakugou warns.

“I am not,” Kirishima snaps, but he squeezes his eyes shut because just the tiniest bit he might.

They could stay over, Kirishima did last time and it was nice, but as Bakugou so succinctly puts it, “I’d rather share a roof with that slime fucker than with that woman.” After they finish with the dishes, Mitsuki ships them off to catch the last train before curfew, ruffling their hair one last time and handing them a package that Kirishima knows from experience is full of cookies. He also knows from experience that they’re going to curl up in his bed and eat nearly all of them at once, and just this once he’s glad that Bakugou never really learned to share.

Their timing is perfect. At ten minutes to curfew, Iida knocks on Bakugou’s door like clockwork. Kirishima opens the door, calls a “Sweet dreams!” over his shoulder, pulls the door shut and saunters the three whole meters to his own door under Iida’s approving eye.

Inside Kirishima’s room, Bakugou is already curled up in his bed, wearing Kirishima’s softest Crimson Riot T-shirt, and getting cookie crumbs everywhere.

“I can’t believe it took us until third year to figure out how to trick that fucking guy,” Bakugou snorts as Kirishima strips off his hoodie and crawls into bed beside him. Kirishima leans in for a kiss. It’s soft and slow, and Kirishima comes away licking a smudge of chocolate from his lower lip. “Also, you hugged my mom, you creep.”

“She hugged me,” Kirishima argues without any heat. He edges in closer, crowding Bakugou until they’re pressed together in a warm line from knee to shoulder. “Also she’s really strong and cool, just like you.”

“Gross,” Bakugou announces flatly, shoving a whole cookie into Kirishima’s mouth. “And you should just forget it, all that crap that old bag said. I know you won’t, but you should.”

Kirishima swallows the cookie he’s been chewing. “I know. But I want your family to like me.”

“They don’t even like me half the time,” Bakugou snorts. He doesn’t say anything else about it while they eat a terrible amount of cookies and argue about whether to sleep all day or go on the mall trip most of their class was planning for their off day tomorrow. They’re both yawning by the time they’re stuffed full, and it feels like the effort of a lifetime for Kirishima to roll over and reach for the lamp switch.

“Hm?” he asks in mild surprise when Bakugou curls tight around his back. It’s nice, but opposite how they usually start out sleeping. It’s easy to relax into it, though, Bakugou’s nose buried in Kirishima’s hair, his grip around Kirishima’s waist possessive. “Mm, ok.”

“I like you enough for all of them,” Bakugou says, quiet but clear in the dark. “Fuck everyone else.”

Kirishima doesn’t bother biting down on his smile, since Bakugou can’t see it anyway. “I’m not fucking anyone but you.”

“Good.” Bakugou’s fingers dig into Kirishima’s skin, bruising, perfect. “But you’re still a creep for hugging my mom.”